a creative blog

May 3, 2016

Kid Created Mother’s Day Gift: Stepping Stone

So since Mother’s Day is just around the corner I thought I would share some of my all time favorite kid created Mother’s Day gifts this week. I have made LOTS and LOTS of kids projects over the years as a teacher. Some have been amazing and some not so much :/ Hahaha Every year for Mother’s Day I help my class of kiddos create something special for their mom’s and these are some of my favs. All of these projects were done with kiddos under the age of 6 and in a classroom setting so they are very kid friendly and pretty easy 🙂

KID CREATED GIFT NUMBER ONE: are these stepping stones. I really like making parent projects that I know they can use and enjoy. These stepping stones turned out so cute and they can be put anywhere outside and be enjoyed for a long time. They were also really fun for the kids to make because it was a new medium for them too work with so they were REALLY excited and double bonus they were pretty inexpensive to make.

Materials:

Quickrete

5 gallon bucket or something else large to mix in

Drill with mixer attachment (This isn’t completely necessary but it makes it soo much easier)

Foil pie pans or plastic planter trays

Chicken wire

Trough or small shovel

Glass pebbles, beads, tiles, rocks or other decorating goodies

cardboard or trash bag (to protect your work surface)

Helpful Info: I found the pie pans and the bags of glass vase fillers at the dollar tree 🙂 One year I even found the pie pans 3 for $1! Whoa hoO! Mega deal! The plastic panted trays I got at home depot. Both were equally easy to use so it’s just what you can find and what is the cheapest 😉

How to:

Cut the chicken wire into “circles” that will fit into your pans. These will give your stepping stones strength and keep them from cracking.

Mix the Quickrete according to package directions. You want the concrete mixture to be the consistency of brownie batter.

Scoop the concrete into your pan filling about half way. Place your chicken wire piece in and then continue to fill pan with concrete mixture. So your pan has concrete, chicken wire, concrete inside

Let the concrete SET UP in your mold for about 30 MINUTES before writing or decorating

Now the fun begins! You can write, put handprints and your decorating goodies into the concrete! * If you do have kiddos do their handprints: have them wash their hands immediately after, there is some harsh stuff in concrete *

Once you have the stones how you like them they need to stay in the mold FOR AT LEAST 24 HOURS, longer if you can! Then you can turn them out or just rip of the foil pan. Wait at least ONE WEEK to Walk on them!!

I liked these so much I made these two separate years 🙂 (Sorry for the bad lighting in this pic)

TEACHER TIP: If you are planning on making this with a large group or a class here is something that helped me a ton! So you have to mix up this batch of concrete and let it sit for 30 min before you can decorate it, but not too long or it sets up so hard you can’t write or press things in it. A little tricky right? Here’s how I managed. I mixed up the concrete in batches to do small groups at a time. Then I prepared the pans for those 5-10 kids. I let the pans sit for about 25 min. Then I pulled aside 3 (or however many kids I was going to work with at one time) and the others I covered with wet paper towels or towels, so they would stop setting. Then when I finished with that first group of 3 I would pull out 3 more etc. Hope that helps 🙂